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Solutions for International Communication | ||
Tags: Lingua franca | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5960 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 1 of 42 03 March 2010 at 2:45am | IP Logged | ||
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What solution do you propose for effective international communication? English? Esperanto? Something else?
I propose the following: People tend to advocate having a single language as the lingua franca of the world. I think it would be more effective to have several regional lingua francas than to have one global lingua franca. If we have only one global lingua franca, it will most probably favour a certain language group, whether English speakers or Europeans, due to the similarity of the lingua franca with their mother tongue. By extension, this puts the rest of the world at a disadvantage. One can clearly see for example how much better Germans, Scandinavians, and Dutch with their native Germanic languages fare with English as a lingua franca in comparison with East Asians whose languages are completely unrelated to English. East Asians have a major disadvantage and have to spend an enormous amount of time and energy to keep pace with the Germanic language speakers in English. Another reason to prefer regional lingua francas over a global lingua franca is because it would foster regionalism, something at least as important as globalism. It's absolutely crucial that citizens of neighbouring countries can communicate with each other effectively. This applies especially to the countries of East Asia. Another advantage of regional lingua francas is that they would increase success rates in foreign language learning. The average Germanic language speaker attempts to learn English and more or less succeeds. The average East Asian language speaker attempts to learn English and more or less fails. If Japanese were learning a language they could connect with better, who knows how much their success rates would increase by. The same applies to countless other nationalities. I propose the following languages for regional lingua francas: North America: English Western Europe: German East Asia and Southeast Asia: Mandarin South Asia: Hindi Eastern Europe: Russian South America: Spanish/ Portuguese Middle East, Turkey, North Africa: Arabic Sub-Saharan Africa: I don't know. Suggestions welcome. Right now only around 20 or 30% of the world's citizens can speak English. I think it's feasible that >90% of the world could speak at least one of these regional lingua francas. Edited by lichtrausch on 03 March 2010 at 4:07am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 42 03 March 2010 at 3:17am | IP Logged | ||
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This seems like a better idea than spreading English even further. Although this situation
somewhat exists. In North America pretty much everyone speaks English (except for those in Mexico, although English education there would be more emphasized if this idea were to be instilled as a principle), in Eastern Europe, some people still speak Russian, and it's not very difficult for other speakers of Slavic languages to learn Russian. In South Asia I don't really know about the situation. In South America Spanish and Portuguese are both spoken and to some extent speakers of both languages can understand the other and I think that it would not be difficult for the Brazilians to learn Spanish or the other way around. In Western Europe many people speak German in German speaking countries, and a lot of people in southern Denmark and in the Netherlands would speak German I imagine. If only English weren't so widespread. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5677 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 3 of 42 03 March 2010 at 4:40am | IP Logged | ||
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Just for clarification: how would people from different regions speak to each other?
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| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5735 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 42 03 March 2010 at 4:57am | IP Logged | ||
Oh, that's easy, everybody would just have to learn English on top of the 'regional lingua franca' :P 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5960 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 5 of 42 03 March 2010 at 5:19am | IP Logged | ||
Depends on the situation. Interpreters are one option. Learning a second regional lingua franca is another. Remember, for most people in the world, learning their local lingua franca will not be nearly as time consuming as learning English, so they will have more time to pursue learning another language if they choose. Also, a large part of the world population speaks one of the regional lingua francas as their native tongue so they of course have time to learn another language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| The Blaz Senior Member Canada theblazblog.blogspotRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5600 days ago 120 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Swahili, French, Sign Language, Esperanto | Message 6 of 42 03 March 2010 at 5:36am | IP Logged | ||
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This seems likely to be the way things will go over the long term. You're talking about
these languages becoming lingua francas, not native languages.. so for instance Japanese people will not stop learning Japanese in the home, but rather the situation will be such that business in East Asia is largely conducted in Mandarin so it is of economic necessity to learn it. It's hard to split Africa into any less than 4 groups. West, Central, and parts of North Africa would consolidate their French speaking status as education reach improves. North Africa would remain in the Arabic world, East Africa will go Swahili (woooo!) And Southern Africa could go in a few directions, including English. Language politics are so heated, there is such diversity out there, and the idea of governable, homogeneous nation-states is such a myth, that language policy is very difficult to see succeeding. However it is likely that utilitarian decision-making will lead people to pick up a regional lingua franca, depending on a variety of factors more complicated than geogrpahy (why don't Gambians speak French? why does continental Europe speak English?). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5422 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 42 03 March 2010 at 6:35am | IP Logged | ||
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I like the regional lingua franca idea, but how would regional leaders communicate with each other?
I'm not a fan of auxlangs, but I think the lingua franca idea would work, but on top of that you would have to attempt to get people to learn a few more languages on top of that so they can communicate with people from different regions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5453 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 8 of 42 03 March 2010 at 9:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Why should people in Western Europe start communicating in German instead of English? Should a Norwegian on holiday in Italy or Portugal speak German to the locals?
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